Calling from the road earlier this week between one campaign stop in Ohio and another, Senator Sherrod Brown wanted to talk about money, but his attention was briefly drawn by something he saw along the roadside.

"Hey, it's one of those nice billboards that the Koch Brothers are paying for all over the state," he exclaimed. "That's a really nice one."

Money is the only story of the various 2012 campaigns. Money always has been the only story of the various 2012 campaigns. At least ever since the Supreme Court decided in favor of David Bossie and Citizens United, thereby loosing unlimited, unaccountable, and largely anonymous corporate money into the system. For a while, it got treated as the only story, particularly during the Republican primaries, when a series of lunatic "contenders" were blown off the stage seriatim as soon as Willard Romney got around to aiming his financial fire hose between their eyes. However, though, while it is still the only story of the various 2012 campaigns, its media profile has been lowered conspicuously. Part of this is because, as the presidential race has accelerated, simple "everybody does it" intellectual cowardice among the media has obscured the deformative effect that unaccountable corporate money has on the processes of self-government — which, of course, does not mean those effects aren't just as real and getting worse.

Sherrod Brown has been the primary target of the new, weaponized corporate money. An unabashed economic populist — he's actually as tough on China as Romney pretends to be — Brown has made the power of corporate money the centerpiece of his career, and the centerpiece of his fight against that power this year in Ohio. In that effort, he has been aided by the basic incompetence of Josh Mandel, his Republican opponent, the current state treasurer, who looks like the son that the Bradys kept in the attic. (According to the most recent RealClearPolitics average of the polling in this race, Brown has maintained a solid five-point lead over Mandel.) However, Brown also has been aided by his own unapologetic defense of his own record. That has made him able to link the power of corporate money in our elections to the power of corporate money in our government to the power of corporate money to cover up the crimes and malfeasance that almost blew up the world.

"I think our side did not do a very good job explaining what happened," Brown told me. "I don't think our messaging was anywhere near as sharp as it should have been as to what actually happened."

In addition, Brown also is critical of the power of money in creating and maintaining an elite consensus regarding various trade deals, a consensus that holds firm with the support of both political parties, the most obvious example of the Democratic party's long slide to starboard that began in the 1970's. "We're talking to people directly about the effect of things like the auto bailout and the trade policies that have hurt the middle class here," Brown said. "It really began with the hollowing out of trade unions. Then the oil embargo happened, and Democrats began to talk differently about trade deals, and wages stagnated while profits went up and productivity went up. It got a little better in the Clinton years but, in this day and age, when the very wealthy are doing fine, we don't explain very well how all of this happened.

"We've got to explain the whole thing better, and that's what we've tried to do out here this year."